Life, Death, and Everything in Between
by MidnightResWri
Summary: A Series of One-shot character studies. Now Playing: Wanted: Life. Reflections on a short life.  Rating subject to change for certain one-shots
1. Command: Upgrade

******Disclaimer:** Yeah...My name still isn't attached to anything legal of Danny Phantom. I don't make money off this. At all.

* * *

><p><strong>Life, Death, and Everything in Between<strong>

A fanfic By MidnightResWri

* * *

><p><em>He never wanted to rule the world until a certain half-ghost made the suggestion.<em>

* * *

><p><strong>Command: Upgrade<strong>

* * *

><p>Nikolai Technus loved to invent in life. He had a laboratory famed across the globe for the insane and wonderful things he created. Most of his work had been ahead of the times, yet to find it's niche in the world. He knew the world would eventually catch up with his brain. It just happened far too slowly to his liking.<p>

When he attempted to sell his inventions to investors, most rejected him. They told him free energy would never catch on. The ability to connect computing devices (which took up entire rooms to perform simple tasks) in a network sounded like a pulp science fiction novel. Even after demonstrations, they refused to believe he had invented a very early, very limited Internet. Something for which he would come to find he would never gain credit.

Nikolai Technus died of old age. He left behind his notes and some of the prototypes of the gadgets he poured his life into, to be found by the next generation. But his love of technology kept him going to a long unlife.

The other side had been odd in the beginning. Nikolai wasn't sure what to do with himself, other than find technology. He needed to feel the advancements, make his own upgrades. Do something with the electrical appliances he had once poured his life into. He never saw the use of interacting with anyone, dead or alive. There was inventing and testing and upgrading to be had.

He continued his inventing in the Ghost Zone. Other residents of that world of the undead would, at times, come to him with commissions. An upgrade here. A new gadget there. He accumulated many favors over the years from those who approached him. He had yet to collect on them. He hardly cared.

He became known by his surname. He became praised for his workmanship. He became something in unlife that he never had before. He became respected.

Technus rarely entered the human world after his death. He never cared for it much. Only popped in every decade or so to check the living's progress in technology. And it was on his most recent visit that changed his mind about the world of the still living.

A living boy had turned into a very dead ghost before his eyes. The room he entered had been filled with inventions on par with his own genius. He was in a place he would have enjoyed speaking to the ones who managed to create both room and boy. He had only just announced his name and title when the boy spoke to him.

"Oh no you don't. You're not going to use the technology in this lab to take over the world."

The suggestion had honestly never occurred to him in all of his visits to that realm.

So, he responded that he thought it was a great idea. It really was a great suggestion. It wasn't really for him, though.

After hearing his admission to liking the idea, the strange little hybrid attacked him. He could have left after that battle, but he wanted to see if the world had finally caught up to him. What better way than to see the world through the eyes of the technology? Technus couldn't think of one.

He came to the living world much more often after that encounter. He couldn't tell you why. He justified his frequent schemes with excuses that mocked his own love of technology. He wanted to use technology to improve the world, not for the destruction that little hybrid thought he desired. In truth, Technus loved finding the more secret advancements of the living world. It helped augment his own research and development.

He enjoyed manipulating the technology and seeing how far he could push it. If he changed one aspect of the design, what would the outcome be?

If Technus remembered his manners, he might have thanked the young little hybrid for giving him a new purpose. Had he let himself drop the facade of megalomania around the child, he might have clarified his purpose in the world of the living.

But Technus never did, and so continued his antagonism towards the boy. The thought that it was to help the young child upgrade like his beloved technology crossed his mind. That might have been the truth. It might have been a lie. But that was the justification Technus used whenever he encountered the boy. Either truth or fiction, Technus found himself loving the world of the living and challenging the wonderful product of science he found that day: the perfect hybrid between life and death.


	2. Wanted: Life

**Disclaimer:** Please don't sue me. I'm merely a fan. Even when I complain, I'm only a fan claiming to have no rights over the property in question.

* * *

><p><strong>Life, Death, and Everything in Between<strong>

A fanfic by MidnightResWri

* * *

><p><em>Reflections on a short life.<em>

* * *

><p><strong>Wanted:<br>****Life**

* * *

><p>Unstable.<p>

Clone.

Failure.

Slave.

Those words haunted her after she left her supposed father. Her creator.

Danielle, or rather "Dani," had found out the hard way that life isn't fair.

Life.

Was it really hers? She never asked to be the clone. The opposite sex clone, to be exact.

More like a gender bent failure of a copy.

She even had memories implanted into her. Memories she knew shouldn't really be hers, but they were there.

It confused her in those early days. Waking up female while thinking she was male. She was only a few days old. She remembered being male from before she had even taken her first step. But she was clearly female. She had the parts to prove it.

Dani felt an attraction toward a certain Goth, and it troubled her when she first saw the girl with violet eyes. Why that girl? Somewhere in her memories, Dani found the answers. The person with whom she shared DNA felt that same attraction. But he wouldn't admit it, according to those memories. It scared her to feel emotions that weren't meant for her. All from memories of a time she never lived.

Dani knew how to use her powers. Another thing the memories granted her. She knew how great it was just to soar in the sky. To defy gravity. She loved it. Every chance she could take, she would be flying. It cleared the mind. It invoked euphoria.

She'd often wonder if it was because of those memories that she enjoyed those flights (after all, _his _memories invoked those feelings for the Goth, as well), or because it was her own honest to god emotion. Usually, she thought it was a bit of both.

Her creator (Slaver) had told her to capture the boy she could recall being. The first day, she only watched him. Danny, he called himself—she knew that. She knew who he was immediately when he arrived at the mini-golf course. Even though he acted strange. Not at all like the memories told her how he should be behaving. There was an odd tension between him and his friends that she didn't remember existing before.

She felt her heart accelerate for a few seconds when she first saw the Goth. Dani almost lost her cover of invisibility when she felt that odd emotion. (Love? Surely not.) She had to push those thoughts away before continuing with the mission.

The chances of encountering the girl in person were great. Those feelings (Not. hers.) needed to be under control by the time the girl met her for the first time.

Before she regained visibility, Dani fled the scene. She would go to his room and wait for him. Everything was just as she knew it would be. A part of her believed it was her room. It was so familiar. Nostalgic, even. She could even wear a smile as she lied to Danny and pretend everything was normal. Because in some messed up way, that was her room, too.

No, Dani didn't want to think about that anymore. It had been too awkward of a time, those first few days. Her entire world had crashed and burned because of her memories that weren't really hers. Because of _his _words that she could trust to be true. Because of her father's (Master's) words that proved her growing doubts.

The young clone folded in on herself, forcing back the tears. She wouldn't cry anymore. Not from that. It's been months since that day. She was supposed to be stronger now.

But even though she flew off with so much bravado, Dani was terrified of the coming day.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:** I won't lie and say I like Dani as the character she turned out to be. I have many issues with her and the cloning plot as a whole, really. I like the concept, but the writers left it unresolved. That's what I'm working with here.

Knowing Vlad, he _would _give Dani Danny's memories as some sort of stepping stone for the perfect clone. Just to see if it would be possible. As to how he got a copy of Danny's memories…that's for you to decide.


End file.
